Wednesday, November 15, 2017

CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (MGM 1937) Warner Home Video

Based on Rudyard
Kipling’s celebrated novel, Victor Fleming’s Captains Courageous (1937) is a life-affirming - if glossy - sea epic
about the fabled travels of a young boy destined to grow up fast. After proving
he cannot be trusted by fabricating a tall tale about his schoolmaster, spoiled
rich kid, Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is taken on a world cruise by his
well-meaning father (Melvyn Douglas) as a way of procuring some quality
father/son bonding time. Mr. Cheyne is a captain of industry; alas, also a
single parent, feeling a genuine sense of guilt perhaps even more than duty, considering
how much time he has spent away from Harvey. Unfortunately for father and son,
half way across their ocean sojourn the ship encounters a gale. Young Harvey is
thrown from the luxury liner but saved from drowning by Manuel Fidello (Spencer
Tracy), a Portuguese fisherman who makes up songs with his concertina in
between catching fish. Manuel takes Harvey back to his schooner, helmed by
Capt. Disko (Lionel Barrymore) and populated by a formidable roster of Metro’s
finest contract players: Charles Grapewin, as dotty, Uncle Salters, John
Carradine (borrowed from Fox) as the forthright and stern, Long Jack, and,
Mickey Rooney, far too mature for his age, as the cabin boy, Dan - a superb
throwaway cameo.

Captains Courageous must rank among the finest
achievements in cinema - period, and not just those made at
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That is saying quite a lot for a studio known in its
heyday for such titanic efforts as The
Great Ziegfeld (1936), Marie
Antoinette (1938) and Goodbye, Mr.
Chips (1939). It is virtually impossible to sit through Fleming’s
incredibly heart-wrenching and meticulously orchestrated coming-of-age four
hanky weepy without breaking out the Kleenex. While too few movies then or now
have taken dead aim at the youth market to plum and prime children with
credibility and virtually none are brave enough to be frank in their reflections
that would greatly benefit and mature such impressionable and constricted psyches,
far too many movies are slavishly devoted to the interminable masking of life’s
harsher truths with unrealistic sugar-coated candy shells of bright-eyed
idealism. Captains Courageous is a
movie made by a guy’s guy; Victor Fleming not yet past his prime to have
forgotten the potency and impact genuine loss can have on reshaping a young
boy’s perspectives; the child becoming a man before our very eyes. Harvey’s
burgeoning maturity is nurtured by the unlikeliest of friendships, carefully
cultivated by one tough/compassionate surrogate in lieu of the patriarchal
influence he otherwise genuinely lacks at home. Alas, this too is cruelly taken
away by a twist of fate.

Captains Courageous is both sobering and uplifting,
thanks to Freddie Bartholomew’s astute pivotal performance as the spoiled rich
kid cum sage seeker of life. The conversion Bartholomew subjects his alter ego
to, is a masterful display, put forth by a sadly forgotten child star, once
considered a rival – if not a better – of Mickey Rooney. Time and Rooney’s own
enduring cinematic legacy (making the successful transition from pint-size
powerhouse to enigmatic teen idol, and later, the diminutive savant of such
children’s classics as Pete’s Dragon
and The Black Stallion) have
unfairly eclipsed Bartholomew’s reputation. But lest we forget, here was a boy
of rare qualities who could appear and decidedly hold his own opposite such
luminaries as Garbo, Lionel Barrymore and Judy Garland, delving into an
extraordinary wellspring of uncannily adult emotions in Anna Karenina, Little Lord
Fauntleroy and David Copperfield
(all three movies made and released in 1935). For a brief wrinkle in time,
Bartholomew was easily MGM’s male counterpoint to Fox’s Shirley Temple; a
prepubescent box office dynamo with a screen presence and the acting chops of a
seasoned professional twice or three times his natural age.

It remains one
of Hollywood’s artistic tragedies to reconsider what Bartholomew’s career might
have been if not for a crippling custody dispute between his birth parents.
Both mismanaged his earning potential, causing a devoted aunt step in and take
custody of Bartholomew in 1937. The aunt had her own agenda, petitioning L.B.
Mayer for a higher salary, in part due to Bartholomew’s staggering success in Captains Courageous. Mayer, however,
was no fool. Nor was he about to pay more for goods already acquired at the
going rate: Bartholomew’s loss/Mickey Rooney’s gain. After Bartholomew’s aunt
threatened to break Freddie’s contract, Mayer’s interest in the pint-sized
actor dramatically cooled. A stalemate between the aunt and Mayer caused
Bartholomew to be overlooked for two splashy productions - Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and Thoroughbreds Don't Cry.

Bartholomew’s
appearance in either film likely would have catapulted him to even greater
heights as a child star. By 1942, the damage incurred was irreversible.
Bartholomew did not make another picture of note after his loan out in 1938 to
2oth Century-Fox for director, Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (Fox’s thinly disguised attempt to recapture the glory of
Captains Courageous). More B-budget
fodder followed; Bartholomew’s appeal further afflicted by the onset of puberty
and his spiking to a height of nearly six feet – decidedly a child no
more. By the mid-1940’s, conscription
put a period to Bartholomew’s film career. At the age of eighteen he entered
military service, severely injuring his back while working in aircraft maintenance. Seven months of painful rehabilitation led to
his early discharge from active service in 1944.

As is the case
with far too many child stars, never again was Bartholomew to scale such
dizzying heights in popularity. The Town
Went Wild, a 1944 B-comedy marked a seven-year hiatus for the actor,
bookended by Bartholomew’s disastrous attempt to break into live theater and a
near-fatal car accident that almost paralyzed him. He wed the first of three
wives, Maely Daniele, in 1946 and spent the rest of the forties waffling in
undistinguished movie cameos; forming a brief nightclub act with Maely,
moderately successful in Australia. By 1949, Bartholomew had reinvented himself
as a fledgling television performer and host; later, showing remarkable clairvoyance
by producing such popular entertainments as The Andy Griffith Show, and the soap operas, As The World Turns, The Edge
of Night and Search for Tomorrow for
Benton & Bowles; a New York advertising agency he would eventually be made
Vice President of in 1964.

Captains Courageous would be nothing at all without
Bartholomew’s extraordinary performance as Harvey Cheyne. But the production
also carefully surrounds Bartholomew with an impressive roll call of Metro’s
finest thespians, beginning with Spencer Tracy. Tracy never considered Manuel
Fidello among his finest performances – despite the fact it won him his first
of two back-to-back Best Actor Academy Awards; perhaps, impacted by Joan
Crawford’s rather glib assessment as she passed the makeup department while
Tracy was having his hair tightly curled, muttering, “Good God, it’s Harpo Marx!”
I will admit, for a whole fifteen seconds after Tracy’s Portuguese
fisherman first appears on the screen his affected accent – more Yiddish than
Portuguese, and sporting unnaturally twirled ringlets left me momentarily
befuddled. But then Tracy kicks in with some of his most understated and
earnest acting; his soothing, but well-founded counseling taking on a quaintly
brusque appeal; the ballast in Harvey’s burgeoning admiration for Manuel
affecting anyone young enough to have fallen in love with an elderly mentor,
or, old enough to recall a special someone who brought out clarity and
perspective from their youthful angst and confusion during that critical juncture
we all face in our early transition from child to adult.

Captains Courageous hits the audience on an emotional
gut level. Manuel’s hellish demise, dragged to the bottom of the ocean by
collapsed rigging during a powerful storm at sea, even as Harvey desperately
tries to keep his best friend’s head afloat; Bartholomew’s wounded, frayed and
tearful disbelief, and later, his angelic solemnity in prayer inside a chapel,
reunited with his father, who has only just begun to comprehend what their friendship
meant to the boy, are indelibly etched vignettes, as truthful and emotionally
satisfying as anything ever achieved at the movies. After Tracy won his Oscar,
he was circumspect about the honor, “Well,
I got away with it. Want to know why? …because of Freddie. Because of that
kid’s performance; because he sold it ninety-eight percent. The kid had to
believe in Manuel, or Manuel wasn’t worth a quarter. The way he would look at
me, believe every word I said, made me believe in it myself. I've never said
this before, and I’ll never say it again. Freddie Bartholomew’s acting is so
fine and so simple and so true that it’s way over people’s heads. It’ll only be
by thinking back two or three years from now that they'll realize how great it
was.”

Captains Courageous opens with a brief scene to
illustrate Harvey’s deviousness; blaming an innocent headmaster for his
expulsion from school; his father’s unquestioning faith in his son’s
accusations, leading Mr. Cheyne to embark upon an extended cruise with Harvey
in tow. Mr. Cheyne is a captain of industry; wealthy but distracted by matters
of business and entrusting Harvey’s upbringing so far to a private school and
the various staff who populate his lavishly appointed manor. Nevertheless,
Harvey has grown up wild, or rather, bratty and undisciplined, believing he is
entitled to this life of privilege in lieu of a strong patriarchal influence to
show him what it means to really be a man. In Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Harvey
has both a father and a mother; the issue of parental neglect, perhaps, more
glaring. But in the movie, Mr. Cheyne is a widower; kindly, invested and
empathetic, but just too busy building a legacy for his son to inherit without
first realizing the child needs a solid base to be worthy of the honor. Father
and son set sail for Europe. But Harvey, playing a deceitful game of ‘hide and
seek’, inadvertently slips from the ship’s deck and topples overboard into
rough seas; his frantic cries to be saved are drowned out by the sound of
crashing waves and the thunderous call of the ship’s whistles.

A short while
later Harvey is picked up by Manuel in a rowboat. Ever stubborn, and now wet,
cold and angry, Harvey orders Manuel to take him to his father. Alas, the two
are in the middle of nowhere; the luxury liner having sailed away without so
much as a second thought to return in search of him. And Manuel is but a sailor
on a nearby schooner traversing the waters in search of fish. Their journey
will take many months. Upon returning to the schooner, Capt. Disko makes it
emphatically clear to Harvey he will not turn his vessel around and sacrifice
the fishing season – ergo, their livelihood – merely to reunite Harvey with his
father. The boy can stay on and become a member of the crew until the season is
over. What? Manual labor? At first, Harvey is as belligerent as ever. He orders
Disko to return him to his father’s ship. The gruff Disko slaps the boy down to
teach him a lesson; a shock to Harvey, who likely has never been disciplined in
his life. Harvey’s next move is to plan his escape in one of the small rowboats
chained to the ship’s bow. This incurs Disko’s considerable wrath and does even
less to ingratiate Harvey to the rest of the crew; first mate, Long Jacks, old
salt, Uncle Salters and matter-of-fact cabin boy, Dan.

However, with a
little friendly patience and understanding from Manuel, Harvey begins to change
his tune. Mulishness gives way to personal satisfaction, Harvey investing
himself in the daily chores and becoming an integral part of the crew.
Gradually, he gains their respect of these hard-working men through his deeds
and learns what it means to be one in a company of brave sea-faring men. Manuel
is the father Harvey has never known; an adult male figure intensely interested
in his welfare and upbringing. As such, Harvey falls under a child’s spell of
worshipping his mentor. As time wears on, he also begins to entertain ideas
about joining Disko’s crew on a permanent basis; something Disko sincerely
promises to consider once they make port. Tragedy strikes when the schooner is
mortally wounded during a perilous storm at sea. In a desperate attempt to free
the ship from its capsized mast, threatening to overturn and drag the ship to
the bottom of the sea, Manuel becomes entangled in its heavy rigging. Harvey
climbs atop the fallen mast and grasps at the soaked lapels of Manuel’s coat,
feverishly trying to keep his fallen friend’s head afloat. Disko wagers
Manuel’s legs have already been severely dislocated and on Manuel’s orders,
Disko cuts the rigging free from the mast, knowing it will drag Manuel to his
death beneath the waves.

The loss is
devastating to all, but particularly to Harvey who looks on in stung disbelief
as the only real friend he has ever known slips beneath the water. Later, after
the vessel is secure, Disko and Dan try to comfort Harvey, alas, to no avail.
Far from belligerently rejecting their kindnesses, Harvey merely confesses to
simply wishing to be left alone. Disko makes for port, realizing the only thing
that may snap the boy from his grief is a reunion with his real father. Mr.
Cheyne is overjoyed to learn his son did not drown at sea and rushes to be
reunited with him, only to discover Harvey has been changed by his experiences
at sea. He is ever more the man now; prematurely aged in his outlook on life
and death; Mr. Cheyne comforting his son inside a church while caught in
thoughtful prayer, still mourning Manuel. After some awkward consternation, Mr.
Cheyne elects to respect Harvey’s friendship; also, assuming his responsibility
for having failed the boy He vows to never again make the same mistake. Harvey
has returned to him – a second chance by the gracious whim of fate and God’s
good graces. The boy still needs guidance. But even more invaluable, he
requires his love and compassion – in short: he needs a father. As Mr. Cheyne
prepares to take Harvey home, the two regard one another as equals; Manuel’s
memory lingering in our hearts as the screen fades to black.

It is impossible
to watch Captains Courageous without
succumbing to the emotionally satisfying groundswell of its life-teaching
precepts. Despite changing times and tastes, John Lee Mahin, Marc Connelly and
Dale Van Every’s screenplay is so supremely invested in the universals of life,
the picture retains its perspective as a heartrendingly relevant melodrama,
once seen, never to be entirely expunged. Victor Fleming, who primarily cut his
teeth on a series of Clark Gable movies, is a masterful understudy of this
particular brand of male-bonding. With Captains
Courageous, Fleming – either consciously or subliminally – has given us
another Clark Gable movie without Gable. In absence of Hollywood’s then
reigning ‘king’, Captains Courageous
is immeasurably blessed to have Freddie Bartholomew. As fine as the rest of the
cast is, they pale to the uncanny command Bartholomew illustrates throughout;
his subtle conversion from scheming brat to sincere contrition is a
spellbinding piece of screen acting. Kipling is right up Fleming’s alley and he
employs his own inimitable stroke of genius on this memorable excursion – the
tale infused with great heart and, of course, superbly staged action sequences
for which all Fleming films are duly noted. Captains Courageous is quite possibly the greatest coming-of-age
story ever committed to celluloid. Easily, it remains among the high-water marks
in Metro’s studio-bound/movie-land magic; a compelling/life-enriching tale
about the brotherhood of the sea and a must see/must own experience to be forever
treasured by the young and young in heart.

Captains Courageousought to be green-lit for Blu-ray
in 2018. Honestly, it should have already made its way down the pike at the
Warner Archive (along with such immortal children’s classics as National Velvet, Little Women and Lassie Come
Home). For now, Warner Home Video’s DVD remains an unexpected delight.
Considering the elements are well over seventy years old, this DVD holds up
spectacularly; the gray scale, impeccably rendered with deep solid blacks and
subtle tonality throughout. Whites are generally clean. Age-related artifacts
are kept to a bare minimum. Certain scenes appear ever so slightly softly
focused – and there are several instances (mostly during rear projection and/or
stock shots) marginally suffering from heavier than usual grain. I suspect this
is as it should be, although I am equally as certain contemporary video
stabilization techniques could do something to make the transitions between
stock footage and studio-bound process work more seamless without sacrificing
the indigenous integrity of the image. For now, at least, this standard DVD
transfer will surely not disappoint. The Dolby Digital mono audio has been
cleaned up and is well-represented at an adequate listening level. Extras are
the real disappointment. We get two unrelated short subjects and the original
theatrical trailer. What? No audio commentary?
Poo-poo, that! Otherwise, Captains
Courageous is one of the all-time greats. Very highly recommended, indeed!

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca